Rain Country
Two days earlier
Shimura Danzō stared expressionlessly at the corpse of the shinobi before him.
Again.
Another ninja sent to request reinforcements had been intercepted and killed.
The entire Rain Country had been sealed off—entry allowed, exit forbidden.
Even messenger hawks were being intercepted.
Of the fifteen hundred shinobi he had brought with him, very few remained.
They had been completely outplayed.
Danzō looked up at the oppressive, overcast sky and let out a faint sigh.
This war… was likely his final battle.
"Elder Danzō…"
The Konoha shinobi accompanying him looked on in despair at the man clad in half-black robes.
"It's fine," Danzō replied calmly.
After ordering the retrieval of the fallen messenger's body, he strode toward the main command tent.
"Hanzō of the Salamander, the Kazekage, the Raikage, and the Tsuchikage are all here."
"That means the pressure on Konoha's other battlefields will inevitably be reduced."
"If my judgment is correct, the Hokage has already sensed something wrong here."
"It won't be long before he leads a force to break through the Rain Country's encirclement and come to our aid."
Danzō made no effort to lower his voice.
The surrounding Konoha shinobi all heard him clearly, and the lifelessness in their eyes instantly reignited with hope.
Trapped in a dead end, surrounded on all sides.
In just a few days, hundreds had already fallen.
They had been prepared to die.
But now, hearing that reinforcements might still come, their fighting spirit surged once more.
Danzō dismissed everyone from his side and sat alone in the central seat of the command tent.
He studied the battle map in front of him carefully.
Searching for a single path to survival.
But there was none.
Ōnoki was a cunning old fox. Having survived the First and Second Shinobi World Wars, he excelled at troop deployment.
With such an overwhelming advantage, how could he possibly leave an opening?
The tent was dimly lit as Danzō lit the oil lamp on the table.
The flickering light cast shifting shadows across his face.
He stared at the map.
A place of certain death.
A true dead end.
He couldn't help but silently applaud that old bastard Ōnoki—truly worthy of being the First Tsuchikage's disciple.
Not only was his strength formidable, even his strategic deployment left Konoha with no escape route whatsoever.
But there was one thing he failed to understand.
Human nature.
When people know there is no way out, the fiercest resistance is born.
Simply put—those with nothing left to lose fear nothing.
Kill one and you break even. Kill two and you profit.
Danzō, who understood this deeply, saw the only glimmer of hope within this seemingly hopeless encirclement.
The problem was—
Their primary target was him.
Even if they broke through the encirclement, the enemy would never let him escape.
Time passed slowly.
The sky outside had fully darkened.
This country seemed perpetually drenched in rain—Danzō, who had spent his life in the Land of Fire, despised this damp climate.
Holding an umbrella, he stepped out into the open ground before the tent, gazing into the rain-soaked night.
Unconsciously, his eyes shifted toward a distant patch of sky.
Vaguely—
He thought he saw someone.
BOOM!
Lightning tore across the heavens, illuminating the land in stark white.
A small figure, floating in midair, appeared clearly in Danzō's sight.
!!!
"Enemy attack!"
Not only Danzō—the sentries on night watch had also spotted the airborne figure.
It was this very old man who had slaughtered countless comrades over the past few days!
Ōnoki of the Two Scales gazed coldly down at the Konoha formation below, making no attempt to conceal himself.
Rain lashed against his body as he calmly raised his hand toward the man holding the umbrella below.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique."
His voice echoed through the night like a whisper from the god of death.
Not even the torrential rain could drown out the weight of his aged tone.
White light—
A beam of pure white tore through the darkness like a blade, ripping straight through Konoha's encampment!
Anything touched by that beam—people, tents, supplies—was instantly erased, reduced to nothingness!
Dust Release.
The unique Kekkei Tōta created by the Second Tsuchikage.
A fusion of wind, fire, and earth chakra—the only technique of its kind in the shinobi world.
Anything struck by it was decomposed down to the molecular level.
An utterly terrifying killing technique.
The Dust Release in the sky was like a signal.
To the east of Konoha's formation, a violent bolt of lightning erupted.
No one could stop the massive man cloaked in crackling lightning as he charged forward.
Anything in his path was blown away in an instant!
The Fourth Raikage.
At the same time, to the west, another figure appeared.
Black wings spread wide behind him as endless black sand swept through the battlefield, harvesting lives with ruthless precision—
The Third Kazekage.
And to the north, another figure emerged, exactly as expected.
Behind him loomed a colossal silhouette, barely visible in the darkness.
With each step it took, the ground trembled.
Hanzō of the Salamander.
As these four appeared, countless other figures emerged from the darkness.
Enemy forces.
Enemies everywhere.
Danzō cast aside his umbrella, allowing the torrential rain to pour freely over him.
"Konoha shinobi!"
He suddenly roared with all his strength.
"These people—"
"They want to seize our land!"
He pointed fiercely at Ōnoki in the sky.
"They want to steal our homes!"
"Take our wealth!"
"Violate our wives and daughters!"
"They are beasts!"
"Wolves!"
"Shameless bandits!"
"Behind us is the Land of Fire!"
"Behind us is Konohagakure!"
"Behind us is our home!"
Every Konoha shinobi turned their gaze toward the man standing in the rain.
"Will you let these bandits step into our homes?!"
In the darkness, Danzō raised his clenched fist high.
His voice pierced straight into the hearts of every shinobi present.
"No!"
"No!"
"NO!!!"
Countless Konoha shinobi roared in unison, their voices tearing through the night.
"Kill them!"
"Kill them all!"
"Kill these bandits!"
"KILL!!!"
High above, Ōnoki stared down at the Konoha shinobi who now fought like ravenous wolves—
And felt a chill crawl across his scalp.
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